Sioux tribe sues brewers for alcohol woes

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in U.S. District
Court of Nebraska, seeks $500 million in damages for the costs the tribe
has incurred in dealing with crime and providing social services and
health care as a result of rampant alcoholism among the 20,000 tribal
members.

The suit is on behalf of the tribe, however, and no individual tribal members are plaintiffs and eligible for money.

It also targets four beer stores in Whiteclay, Neb., a tiny town in northwest Nebraska at the South Dakota
border near the reservation. Despite only about dozen residents in
town, the stores sold almost 5 million cans of beer in 2010 -- almost
250 cans per Pine Ridge tribal member. Alcohol is not legal on the reservation.

Tribal
leaders and activists blame Whiteclay businesses for chronic alcohol
abuse and bootlegging on the reservation. They say most of the stores'
customers come from Pine Ridge.

"In a town of
11 people selling 4.9 million 12-ounce servings of beer, there is no way
that alcohol could be legally consumed. It's just impossible," said Thomas White, a former Nebraska legislator and Omaha, Neb., lawyer who is representing the tribe.

Equally
as important as the damage award the tribe wants is that the lawsuit
seeks a ruling on how much beer Whiteclay retailers can sell, White
said. This is the key to stopping beer trafficking at Pine Ridge.

"We
are not saying you can't sell beer," White said. But he points to the
large amount of beer sold in Whiteclay in 2010 and says, "you cannot
sell in volumes you know will be illegally transported and sold. You
have to reduce sales to a responsible level."

The
lawsuit alleges that beer makers and stores sold to Pine Ridge
residents knowing they would smuggle the alcohol into the reservation to
drink or resell. Beer makers supplied the stores with "volumes of beer
far in excess of an amount that could be sold in compliance with the
laws of the state of Nebraska," tribal officials allege in the lawsuit.

Most
of Whiteclay's beer store customers have no legal place to drink
alcohol because it's banned on the reservation, state law prohibits
drinking outside the stores and the nearest town that allows alcohol is
20 miles south, said Mark Vasina, president of the group Nebraskans for
Peace.

Owners of the four beer stores in
Whiteclay were unavailable or declined comment Thursday when The
Associated Press contacted them. A spokeswoman for Anheuser-Busch InBev
Worldwide said she was not yet aware of the lawsuit, and the other four
companies being sued did not immediately return messages.

The
lawsuit's defendants include the distributors and brewers and Whiteclay
retail outlets because those higher up the sales and distribution chain
exert pressure to maximize beer sales, White said. In hearings before
the Nebraska Legislature in the past, distributors have argued their contracts with brewers require them to sell all the beer they are supplied.

"If
the brewers say that to their distributors, then they all deserve it,"
White said of including brewers in the lawsuit. "These guys have an
obligation to control their distributors."

Frank Pommersheim, a University of South Dakota law professor, is not sure the federal government can oversee the way Nebraska regulates beer sales.

"There
is no doubt of the incredible harm caused by the actions in Whiteclay,"
Pommersheim said. "The question is whether that translates into an
actionable claim of federal jurisdiction."

The
tribe sees the lawsuit as a last resort after numerous failed attempts
to deal with the abuse through protests and public pressure on
lawmakers. Oglala Sioux President John Yellow Bird Steele said the
tribal council authorized the lawsuit in an effort to protect the
reservation's youth.

"Like American parents
everywhere, we will do everything lawful we can to protect the health,
welfare and future of our children," he said.

Nebraska
lawmakers have struggled for years to curb the problem and are
considering legislation this year that would allow the state to limit
the types of alcohol sold in areas such as Whiteclay. The measure would
require local authorities to ask the state to designate the area an
"alcohol impact zone."

Nebraska's liquor
commission then could limit the hours alcohol sellers are open, ban the
sale of certain products or impose other restrictions.

Thomas
Horton, a USD law professor who has a lengthy career litigating federal
antitrust and civil cases, said the tribe's case could have national
significance.

And Horton knows the beer business. "I was the lead attorney on the Miller-Coors merger," he said.

"This
sounds like a very interesting lawsuit that is going to have some
legs," Horton said. "I would think the tribe's jurisdiction over alcohol
sales is protected, and this sounds like a scheme to circumvent that.